F-35 controversy rears its head as National Defence refuses to release details on more multi-billion dollar projects

OTTAWA — National Defence has refused to release information about four troubled, multibillion-dollar military projects to Parliament’s budget watchdog, prompting concerns the department and Conservative government have failed to learn from the F-35 controversy.

The Parliamentary Budget Office asked Defence officials in February to provide cost estimates and planning documents for new armed Arctic patrol ships after opposition MPs asked the PBO to look into the actual costs of the project.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised between six and eight patrol ships for $3.1 billion in 2006, but the project has since faced several delays and there are fears the government will either have to increase the budget or build far fewer vessels.

Yet in a response letter dated June 25 and published on the PBO website Wednesday, the Defence Department’s top civilian, Richard Fadden, wrote that the cost estimates were secret and would not be released.

Fadden also said access to the planning documents, called a statement of requirements, “falls outside the scope of the mandate of the Parliamentary Budget Officer … and is therefore not being provided to your office.”

Statements of requirement, which are created for all military procurement projects so the government knows what the Canadian Forces needs, were public documents under previous governments.

National Defence also provided the PBO access to the F-35’s statement of requirements when the watchdog was conducting its ultimately explosive study of the stealth fighter project two years ago.

The PBO confirmed Wednesday that Fadden also rejected information requests related to three other military procurement projects, including plans to buy new search-and-rescue aircraft and armoured vehicles for the army.

Both projects have faced major problems that culminated in the Conservative government pushing the reset button, leaving their status and viability in limbo.

The final information request related to replacements for the navy’s aging frigates and destroyers, a project Defence Department insiders have privately acknowledged is facing its own share of difficulties.

The interim parliamentary budget officer, Sonia L’Heureux, has written Fadden to say the information is essential for her office to ensure the accuracy of its Arctic patrol vessel study and to propose another method of collecting what is required.

“By providing this data to us, which can be obtained from the design teams and shipyards, you would be greatly aiding us in establishing a more accurate and comprehensive estimate,” L’Heureux wrote on July 16.

A Defence Department spokeswoman said in an email that the department “remains committed to ensuring transparency and openness in its interactions with the PBO and the Canadian public.”

However, she did not respond to requests for further information about why the statements of requirement and cost estimates were, respectively, deemed outside the PBO’s mandate and secret.

NDP defence critic Jack Harris said a “culture of secrecy” continues to dominate in National Defence, and he accused Defence officials and the Conservative government of adopting the same tactics that got them into trouble on the F-35.

In the lead-up to the 2011 federal election, Defence Department officials intentionally dodged repeated requests from the PBO to sit down and discuss the true cost of the F-35.

They then set about trying to undermine the watchdog’s report when it sparked a furor weeks before the election by estimating the jets would cost $30 billion over 30 years.

The Conservative government backtracked on its commitment to purchase 65 of the F-35s late last year following a scathing auditor general’s report and revelations the stealth aircraft would actually cost taxpayers more than $45 billion to own and operate.

The government has promised full transparency going forward, while many critics and observers have credited the PBO with raising the first alarms about the true costs of the fighter project.

“We thought this government had learned its lesson,” Harris said. “But they’re stonewalling the Parliamentary Budget Office once again.”

Harris also noted that National Defence withheld the statement of requirements for search-and-rescue aircraft in 2004, which ultimately contributed to the problems that have kept new planes from being purchased for more than a decade.

Liberal defence critic John McKay said National Defence’s refusal to come clean with the information “makes everybody suspicious of what they’re doing,” and he worried it was an attempt to hide how poorly the four projects are doing.

He believed the final decision not to co-operate with the PBO rested at the political level in the defence minister’s office or above.

“There’s no question that this was a managed exercise or an attempt to manage the exercise,” he said. “The best thing to fight a political firestorm is to withhold fuel with the fire.”